Artificial intelligence poses a real threat to humankind, Bill Gates warns, and he “does not understand” those who are not concerned with this notion. But Microsoft’s head of research, Eric Horvitz, says the fears are exaggerated.

Gates has joined the camp of experts like Stephen Hawking and
Elon Musk who believe that further development of artificial
intelligence could endanger our civilization.

As someone who has been at the cutting edge of technological
progress for the last 40 years, Gates was asked on his Ask Me
Anything thread on Reddit about “machine
superintelligence” posing an “existential threat”
to us all.

“I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence.
First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super
intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few
decades after that, though, the intelligence is strong enough to
be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and
don't understand why some people are not concerned.”

Gates opted not to answer the second part of the question, about
whether “full end-to-end encryption for all internet activity
can do anything to protect us from that (AI) threat.”

At the opposite end of the AI threat discussion is Microsoft
Research's chief, Eric Horvitz.

In an interview with the BBC, Horvitz said that artificial
intelligence could really achieve consciousness, yet such
self-awareness structures would not threaten humankind.

“I fundamentally don't think that's going to happen,”
Horvitz said. “In the end, we'll be able to get incredible
benefits from machine intelligence in all realms of life, from
science to education to economics to daily life.”

Horvitz, who leads a team of over 1,000 scientists and engineers,
revealed that more than one-quarter of his unit’s resources are
dedicated to artificial intelligence research.

Billionaire entrepreneur and inventor Elon Musk has warned of the
dangers of artificial intelligence, and has donated $10 million
towards a global research program to ensure AI remains beneficial
to humanity.